World chip sales down 7% in February

January worse than previously thought. Whoops...

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Semiconductor sales around the world fell almost seven per cent in February, but sales remain higher this year than last.

Some $15.5 billion worth of semiconductors were sold in February, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association's latest figures. That's a fall of 6.9 per cent on January's figure of $16.6 billion, itself a seven per cent decline on December 2000's sales.

However, February 2001's sales were nevertheless 5.8 per cent up on the $14.6 billion worth of sales made in the same month last year.

Interestingly, January's figure marks a $200 million downward revision over the SIA's previously reported figure of $16.8 billion. The discrepancy arose from the difference between actual sales and the estimates made by "some companies". $200 million is a significant miscalculation, and shows that the market was considerably weaker than the industry had anticipated.

We can't help but wonder what such miscalculations will do to February's numbers. As they stand, the Americas saw the biggest dip, with sales to the region falling 7.3 per cent to $5.1 billion. Asia-Pacific was close behind with a 7.1 per cent decline to $3.6 billion. Sales to Japan fell 6.8 per cent to $3.8 billion, while European sales reached $3.3 billion, a drop of 6.3 per cent. ®